so while the world's attention is being turned away from iraq al qaeda in iraq has been gaining strength, gaining momentum and it's been pouring across the syrian border. the exact opposite of what was happening when iraq, when the violence there was at its worse and people were going, you know, the violence is going the other way, now it's coming from syria into iraq again. and of course you know, many u.s. officials agree that what they rarely did in iraq was hand the country on a silver plate to iran. it's not just what the allies will do. it's the level of power and influence that iran yields in iraq today. that was a gift from the united states. >> al qaeda has mutated its change. the nature of the jihad, the holy war defined by osama bin laden has changed. his idea of the holy war was the battle against the far enemy, against the wednesday, against the united states. now jihad is mostly local like politicsment so you have al qaeda in nigeria, you have al qaeda in somalia, in syria, they are fightsing local causes. they've got sort of narrow local interests they are pushing, doing t